Two police officers to stand trial for pepper-spraying politicians at 2020 abortion protests

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

A current and former police officer will stand trial over incidents in which they used pepper spray against two lawmakers – Magdalena Biejat and Barbara Nowacka – while they attended mass protests in 2020 against the introduction of a near-total ban on abortion in Poland.

In one incident, Biejat (pictured above) was pepper-sprayed by an undercover officer from less than two metres away as she tried to show her parliamentary ID. In the other, Nowacka was pepper-sprayed twice by a uniformed officer from a distance of less than half a metre.

Both politicians were then part of the opposition, but Nowacka now serves as education minister while Biejat is a deputy speaker of the Senate.

Prosecutors determined that the actions of the police officers in question – one of whom has since retired from the force – constituted an abuse of their powers. If convicted, they could face up to ten years in prison.

The abortion protests were among the largest in Poland since the fall of communism, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets. The authorities at the time, under the then national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government, were accused of using excessive force against the demonstrators.

But the police rejected those claims, and also reported that officers had suffered injuries and been subjected to harassment and insult. They noted that the protests themselves were unlawful due to pandemic restrictions in force at the time that banned public gatherings.

In one of the incidents in question, which took place on the evening of 18 November 2020, Biejat – then an MP for the opposition The Left (Lewica) party – was attending a protest in Warsaw.

According to prosecutors, plainclothes police officers were pulling protesters from the crowd. Biejat attempted to intervene, calling for an end to what she said was unjustified violence, while holding her parliamentary identity card at face level.

One of the officers – who can be named only as Sebastian S. under Polish privacy law – then sprayed her with pepper spray before retreating behind a line of uniformed police. The incident was recorded by an onlooker and widely shared on social media.

An expert opinion commissioned by prosecutors found the officer’s actions to be disproportionate and unjustified.

“It constituted an excessively drastic measure of coercion, disproportionate to the level of threat,” said Piotr Antoni Skiba, spokesman for the Warsaw prosecutor’s office. “The victim’s behaviour did not indicate any intent to use any methods aimed at directly attacking any legally protected property.”

However, investigators had problems identifying the officer in question due to the low quality of video footage and the fact that a significant portion of his head and face were covered.

Eventually, after securing additional expert opinions, prosecutors concluded with a “very high degree of probability” that the perpetrator was Sebastian S. based on matching facial features, said Skiba.

Sebastian S., who has retired from the police since the incident took place, has pleaded not guilty and declined to comment when questioned as a suspect.

The incident involving Nowacka occurred on the evening of 28 November 2020, during another protest against both the abortion law and against what demonstrators described as police brutality at earlier rallies. The protest was held on the 102nd anniversary of women winning the right to vote in Poland.

According to prosecutors, the officer, identified only as Dawid B., was part of a police cordon. As he passed Nowacka, he stepped out of the front line, briefly breaking the formation, and sprayed Nowacka twice from a distance of less than half a metre as she held out her parliamentary identity card.

She was subsequently escorted by two other officers to a bus shelter, where paramedics provided assistance.

Prosecutors again determined that Dawid B’s actions were excessive and disproportionate. He has not admitted guilt but did express “deep regret for what happened” and apologised to Nowacka. He remains a serving police officer.

Under the PiS government, which ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023, the police recorded the largest decline in public trust among major institutions, according to regular polling by IBRiS. They were regularly accused of using excessive force and of being under political influence.

Shortly after taking power from PiS at the end of 2023, the new coalition government – which includes Biejat’s party, The Left – announced that police officers would no longer wear face coverings and would no longer “serve as a security agency” for PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Slawomir Kaminski/Agencja Wyborcza

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.